The present invention generally relates to devices for indexing individual pieces in a magazine, particularly to indexing devices for gravity-fed magazines, and specifically for indexing devices for apparatus for severing frozen columns or logs of fish or the like.
In the apparatus of the type as shown and described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,299,150 and 5,125,305 or the like, logs of fish are severed from the bottom into portions. It should be noted that logs are stacked in the magazine with the second log in each tube resting on the first or bottom log in the tube. It should further be appreciated that the lengths of the logs of fish are not exact and often the last cut in the bottom log does not leave the last portion of the log equal to the desired thickness of portions. As the second log is resting directly on top of the first log, the next cut would be in the second log with the total thickness then being made up by the last section of the first log and the initial section of the second log. At least one of such sections and probably both would then not be commercially marketable as being less than a nominal thickness. Thus, a need exists for insuring that the first cut in a new fish log will be at the total thickness desired to trim waste by approximately 50% as only the last sections of the fish logs may not be of the nominal thickness.